The European Poker Tour's thirteenth season is today gearing up in Barcelona with the hole events of the Estrellas Poker Tour. It looked like an out of this world opportunity to provide some insight into what's arising. I WILL lift the bonnet on a couple of areas, including a shift in our payouts structure so that it will see 20% of fields paid (up from 15%), and the rollout of PLO High Roller events - but do pencil in next Wednesday to test the scoop here on PokerStars Blog.

Lots! We now have numerous really exciting things coming along, which you will know about soon. But for the instant listed below are a couple of things which are going to transport the needle in 2016 in EPT13.

When building the schedule for the Bahamas in 2017 we needed to offer our big PLO players an advantage and once we found a fantastic spot within the schedule we thought it'd be fun to throw a $25K buy-in PLO High Roller into the mix.

Once we started exploring the impact at the overall schedule we realized it wasn't only a good idea for the Bahamas but a super idea for the entire EPT and immediately dropped it into Prague, Malta and Barcelona for €10K. It's going to follow the similar buy-in rules because the regular EPT High Roller with $/€25K within the Bahamas and Monaco and €10K in Malta, Barcelona and Prague.

We've had some fun at PokerStars events during the last year playing Chess at the UKIPT and EPT while the IPT have been playing Pinball and Backgammon. We're seeking to leave the felt even a little more during upcoming events.

The popular EPT Chess could be creating a debut in Malta and a return to Prague (potentially even a stop within the Bahamas if I WILL BE ABLE TO get it approved). We're also exploring some EPT Backgammon and sliding our way into the casinos of our partners to maybe play some Blackjack, Roulette and even Video Poker or Slots! While we cannot have any pinball in 2016 at the EPT, I'LL BE accepting challenges at the flippers around the pond around Halloween should you follow my meaning.

If anyone has something fun they want to play, please reach out and tell us. Just about all poker players at heart are card players and that i would really like to peer EPT Cribbage, EPT Gin, EPT Hearts, even EPT Crazy Eights!

The biggest change for EPT13 is the growth of our payouts. We've focused so much on making the live poker experience as positive and enjoyable as possible and that is the reason included taking a look at the payout structure. For the last three seasons, the EPT has paid 15% of the sector at our Live Events with a minimum cash of roughly 1.7x your buy-in.

For EPT13, we're expanding our payouts out to twenty% of the sector (non-EPT events will finish out their seasons with the present structures). It's not going to have the top-end impact that some people might imagine as we've got decided that the min cash for all of the players that we're adding between 15% and 20% can be between 1x-1.2x your buy-in. It has been something that we've been engaged on all the way down to the wire to ensure that the impact is overall a good one for all players and likewise fits our goal of getting more winners.

For example, 220 players bought right into a €1,000 Hyper at Barcelona last year. The winner collected €45,134 and 31 players were paid out with 31st getting €1,878. This year, the winner would collect €38,028 but 47 players could be paid out with 47th getting €1,238. That very same 31st player would get €1,921.

Another example is the €500 HORSE which had 79 runners. As opposed to 11 players getting paid out between €958 and €10,537 we'd pay 17 players out between €575 and €8,843.

It's the way to give much more players a second shot, while exerting just a negligible effect on prize pool distribution. It is a tough line to tread: giving more players a greater experience while with the intention that champs are well rewarded. Given the recognition of events that we're running we believe that this offers a greater balance. We always take heed to feedback and check out to consider as many opinions as possible.

The news we've arising is truly exciting and that i can't wait to speak with everyone about all of it.

I guess my answer for now's that last year we spent Halloween in Malta and it was a ton of fun putting in place such things as the Friday FrankenStack and the Not Your Mummy's Main Event Turbo. This year for Halloween I WILL BE at a unique event and we've already created the Revolting Razz Turbo and the Terrifying Turbo to be able to give double stacks to players in costume (floor decision on what's and isn't a fancy dress is final).

I probably already said too much, so I'll end by saying it will likely be fun to return home to work again. It has been too long...

Please email me at live@pokerstars.com with any feedback that you've got in regards to the issues above or anything PSLive related.

Neil Johnson is Department Head, Live Poker Operations for PokerStars. Follow him on Twitter: @NeilJPoker.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: European Poker Tour]